#RPGaDAY 2017, Day 15: Adapting a Game

Wow. Let’s see. I was at Gen Con and didn’t get ahead on my #RPGaDAY posts. Where did I leave off?

Day fifteen?

Okay, then. The topic for that day is “Which RPG do you enjoy adapting the most?” Well, that’s an odd one. I mean, I could see how someone’s answer is something like how they use game X to play Star Wars (or Shadowrun), but for the most part I’m thinking the real answers to this question is about generic game systems, like Fate or GURPS.

I suppose a case could be made for Dungeons & Dragons and how it’s adapted to different settings, like taking the rules for 5e and running a game on the Rock of Bral or in Greyhawk or a homebrew campaign. Or even taking Primetime Adventures and using it to run a show about secret agents in the 1960s or about colonists on Mars, but really, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing with that game.

I’m going to have to default to Fate. I’ve played Shadowrun in that (with a game session of the Shab-al-Hiri Roach in that Fate Shadowrun game), wanted to play a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Pirates of the Caribbean mashup game (with a working title of Miranda, the Pirate Slayer), converted our old Armitage Files to that system when Gumshoe didn’t work for our group, and worked on getting a Crimson Skies-themed game up and running with it.

I would also go with Cortex Plus, but I don’t know how to run it as well as I do Fate.

Previously on #RPGaDAY…

Last year, we discussed player-driven gaming or the role of a GM at the table, which was published on the 29th of the month, so I’m not that far behind schedule! In that writing, I discussed how in early gaming years, things seemed to be always about the players partaking in the GM’s story, but contemporary games seem to blur that GM/player divide. At Gen Con, when I was demoing 7th Sea to a small group, I spoke about how I really didn’t like the word “player” to describe everyone at the table who wasn’t running the game. That GM? She’s still a player of the game. Her role and responsibilities may be different, but she’s still playing the game. I feel that sometimes that’s forgotten.

In 2015, the topic was “Your Longest Campaign”. Despite me saying I don’t enjoy long campaigns, this Princes of the Apocalypse campaign is just going on and on, mainly because we only get together for three-hour sessions.